1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing surface processing method and a printing surface processing apparatus, and in particular, relates to a printing surface processing method and a printing surface processing apparatus each of which can be applied to creation of a piece with a desired painting style by editing and processing an original image.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with spread of personal computers, color printers, image editing software, Internet or the like, it has been possible to easily edit and print images at ordinary households too. Currently, by using image editing software installed in personal computers, digital cameras or the like, or by using image editing services through Internet, original images can be edited and processed to create desired pieces with various painting styles, such as an oil painting style, a watercolor painting style, a colored pencil drawing (painting) style, a pastel painting style and an airbrush painting style.
With respect to the image editing and processing technology, there is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-31688 a technology to convert an image picked up by a digital camera into an image with a painting style.
However, a piece created by the image editing described above is just a painting-like image, and accordingly only a flat painting-like image (i.e. pseudo-printed material) is usually obtained. To express or reproduce such a piece with a more realistic texture, there are problems described below.
That is, for example, as a feature of oil painting, in general, paint is laid on thickly so as to make a painting three-dimensional. Hence, to create a piece with the oil painting style as a printed matter from an original image, an edited image needs to be printed on a thick printing medium having not a flat surface shape but an uneven surface shape. Household printers cannot perform the printing properly. This is because a standard is established for printing media on which the household printers can perform printing. Because of the mechanism of the household printers, if the surface shape of a printing medium is not flat or the thickness thereof is more than the thickness of the standard, a household printer often cannot print an image on a printing medium or cannot express or reproduce a desired texture. As a method to solve these problems, there is a method of scanning an image multiple times so as to lay on paint multiple times, thereby printing a three-dimensional image on a printing medium by using, for example, an inkjet printer for business, which uses ink having a high viscosity. However, it takes much time and money. Hence, this method is not something casually taken for general use.
As is the case with creation of a piece with the oil painting style, in the case of creation of a piece with the watercolor painting style, the colored pencil drawing style, the pastel painting style or the like by editing and processing an original image too, it is difficult for a household printer to express or reproduce unevenness sense of a painting style, namely, a unique texture of a painting style, such as a touch and/or a stroke of a brush thereof.